Physical Stats Form Factor Extended ATX Dimensions 13" x 12" (33.0cm x 31.0cm)   Processor/Cache CPU Dual 771-pin LGA Sockets Supports up to Dual Intel® 64-bit Xeon®processor(s) of the same type below: Quad-Core Intel® Xeon®Processor 5400/5300LV sequence (Harpertown /Clovertown processor) up to 3.20 GHz Dual-Core Intel® Xeon®Processor 5200/5100LV sequence (Wolfdale/Woodcrest processor) up to 3.40 GHz System Bus 1600 / 1333 / 1066 MHz system bus   System Memory Memory Capacity Eight 240-pin DIMM sockets Supports up to 64 GB 800* / 667 / 533MHz DDR2 ECC FB-DIMM memory Dual branch memory bus Memory must be populated in pairs Memory Sparing supported Memory Type 800* / 667 / 533MHz FB-DIMM (Fully Buffered DIMM) ECC DDR2 SDRAM 72-bit, 240-pin gold-plated DIMMs DIMM Sizes 512 MB, 1GB, 2GB, 4GB , 8GB** Memory Voltage 1.8 V or 1.5 V Error Detection Corrects single-bit errors Detects double-bit errors (using ECC memory) Supports Intel® x4 and x8 Single Device Data Correction (SDDC)   On-Board Devices Chipset Intel® 5400 (Seaburg) chipset ESB2 SATA Intel ESB2 SATA 3.0Gbps Controller RAID 0, 1, 5, 10 support (Windows only) RAID 0, 1, 10 support (Linux) IPMI Support for Intelligent Platform Management Interface v.2.0 / 1.5 200-pin IPMI slot (SIMLP) (Optional: AOC-SIMLP-B) (Optional: AOC-SIMLP-3) with 3rd LAN support NOTE: KVM-over-LAN not supported - there is no DVO signal to the IPMI slot Network Controllers Intel® 82575EB Dual-Port Gigabit Ethernet Controller Supports 10BASE-T, 100BASE-TX, and 1000BASE-T, RJ45 output Intel® I/OAT support for fast, scaleable, and reliable networking Super I/O Winbond 83627HG chip Audio ALC 883 High Definition 7.1 Channel Audio   Input / Output Serial ATA Six Serial ATA ports Six SATA hard drives supported IDE Single EIDE channel supports up to two UDMA IDE devices (IDE-M, IDE-S) including CF (Compact Flash) Card Compact Flash (40-pin connector, IDE 1, single channel) slot Supports UDMA Mode 5, PIO Mode 4, and ATA/100 Floppy 1 Floppy controller; 1.44 MB LAN 2x RJ45 LAN ports USB 4x USB rear ports 1x USB internal header Total 5 USB 2.0 Compliant / 1.1 Compliant Audio High Definition 7.1 Channel Audio Line-in / Line-out / Microphone Ports Keyboard / Mouse PS/2 keyboard and mouse ports Serial Port / Header 1 Fast UART 16550 serial port 1 Serial header Parallel Port 1 ECP / EEP parallel port Firewire 2x IEEE 1394 ports (headers) Expansion Slots PCI-Express 2 (x16) PCI-e (Gen 2.0) slots PCI-X 2x 64-bit 133MHz PCI-X (3.3V) slots PCI 2x 32-bit PCI (3.3V) slots UIO 1x UIO Slot   System BIOS BIOS Type 8Mb Flash EEPROM with Phoenix® BIOS BIOS Features Plug and Play (PnP) DMI 2.3 PCI 2.2 ACPI 1.0 / 2.0 USB Keyboard support   Management Software Optional IPMI (Intelligent Platform Management Interface) 2.0 Super Doctor III Watch Dog NMI Power Configurations ACPI Power Management Wake-On-Ring (WOR) header Wake-On-LAN (WOL) header Keyboard Wakeup from Soft-Off CPU Fan auto-off in sleep model Power-on mode for AC power recovery Suspend to RAM ( STR )   PC Health Monitoring CPU Monitors for CPU Cores, +1.8V, +3.3V, +5V, ±12V, +3.3V Standby, +5V Standby, VBAT, Memory, Chipset Voltages. 5-Phase-switching voltage regulator with auto-sense from 0.8375V-1.60V FAN Total of eight 4-pin fan headers supporting up to 8 fans 8x fans with tachometer status monitoring Status monitor for speed control Support 3-pin fans (w/ speed control) Low noise fan speed control Pulse Width Modulated (PWM) fan connectors Temperature Monitoring for CPU and chassis environment CPU thermal trip support Thermal Control for 8x fan connectors PC temperature sensing logic PECI Thermal Monitor 2 (TM2) support LED CPU / System Overheat LED Suspend-state indicator LED Other Features Chassis intrusion detection Chassis intrusion header SDDC Support   Operating Environment / Compliance RoHS   RoHS Compliant 6/6, Pb Free Environmental Spec. Operating Temperature: 10° to 35°C (50° to 95°F) Non-operating Temperature: -40° to 70°C (-40° to 158°F) Operating Relative Humidity: 8% to 90% (non-condensing) Non-operating Relative Humidity: 5 to 95% (non-condensing)

The X7DWA-N is a far more complete unit than the Asus.  Not only does it have audio and firewire, but also an IPMI slot and a SuperMicro-made slot called UIO shared with the last PCI-X slot.  UIO is a clever way of providing consumers with two interfaces possible on one physical slot, just like how a PCI and an ISA slot used to share one space on MBs in the '90s.  You can now use your PCI-X RAID controller for a couple more years until it dies, then upgrade to a UIO RAID card, without having to swap motherboards.  Electrically, the UIO slot is a PCIe x8.

Here are some images of the motherboard, and an LSI 1078 UIO RAID card:

General board layout

Rear panel layout - PS/2 ports, 4x USB 2.0 ports, serial and parallel ports, 2x RJ45 Ethernet, and multichannel audio outputs

8x DIMM slots utilizing two branches of four memory channels, power connectors

CPU sockets showing the power delivery circuitry to the right

Slot configuration.  The top slot is an IPMI slot, while the bottom blue one is the UIO slot

Bottom right corner showing the FDD, IDE, and CF connector (white).  6x black SATA ports on the bottom

8x Port SAS RAID UIO Card based on an LSI 1078 - AOC-USAS-H8iR

Because of this intriguing UIO card, we decided to test its performance with 8x 15,000 SAS HDDs. 

LSI's newly revamped Storage Manager software:

 

Here are the results:

HDTach 3.0.1.0, 8MB Zones, RAID-0, 8k stripe

HDTach 3.0.1.0, 32MB Zones, RAID-0, 8k stripe

ATTO Benchmark, RAID-0, 8k stripe

HDTach 3.0.1.0, 8MB Zones, RAID-0, 64k stripe

HDTach 3.0.1.0, 32MB Zones, RAID-0, 64k stripe

ATTO Benchmark, RAID-0, 64k stripe

N/A
HDTach 3.0.1.0, 8MB Zones, RAID-0, 1024k stripe

HDTach 3.0.1.0, 32MB Zones, RAID-0, 1024k stripe

ATTO Benchmark, RAID-0, 1024k stripe

HDTach 3.0.1.0, 8MB Zones, RAID-5, 8k stripe

HDTach 3.0.1.0, 32MB Zones, RAID-5, 8k stripe

ATTO Benchmark, RAID-5, 8k stripe

HDTach 3.0.1.0, 8MB Zones, RAID-5, 64k stripe

HDTach 3.0.1.0, 32MB Zones, RAID-5, 64k stripe

ATTO Benchmark, RAID-5, 64k stripe

N/A
HDTach 3.0.1.0, 8MB Zones, RAID-5, 1024k stripe

HDTach 3.0.1.0, 32MB Zones, RAID-5, 1024k stripe

ATTO Benchmark, RAID-5, 1024k stripe

HDTach 3.0.1.0, 8MB Zones, RAID-6, 8k stripe

HDTach 3.0.1.0, 32MB Zones, RAID-6, 8k stripe

ATTO Benchmark, RAID-6, 8k stripe

HDTach 3.0.1.0, 8MB Zones, RAID-6, 64k stripe

HDTach 3.0.1.0, 32MB Zones, RAID-6, 64k stripe

ATTO Benchmark, RAID-6, 64k stripe

HDTach 3.0.1.0, 8MB Zones, RAID-6, 1024k stripe

HDTach 3.0.1.0, 32MB Zones, RAID-6, 1024k stripe

ATTO Benchmark, RAID-6, 1024k stripe

We see here that the UIO RAID card manages about 800+ MB/s in RAID-0 tests as shown in the ATTO tests with a 64k stripe.  The smaller 8k stripe slows down the entire array, while the bigger 1024k stripe size bottlenecks the card especially in the RAID-5 and 6 tests.  Note that these tests were done without a second graphics card so as not to occupy the bus.  It is also important to state that Supermicro also has UIO cards with the Intel IOP processor instead of the LSI 1078. 

The CPU, memory, and graphics tests all came out to be within 3% of the results using the Asus board.  No surprise since the chipset, memory, CPU and GPUs are all the same.  The Asus MB drew a bit less power than the Supermicro, but it cannot be explicitly determined that the savings is because of the power regulation circuitry because each board has a different set of on-board devices (LAN, VGA, 1394 and audio chips).